Death of Umi sparks concern over electric threat to Sumatran elephants

TEBO, Indonesia — Electrified fences set up around farms are an emerging threat to the critically endangered Sumatran elephant, conservationists told Mongabay Indonesia following a series of deaths this year in Aceh and Jambi provinces.

Wishnu Sukmantoro of the Indonesian Elephant Conservation Forum (FKGI), a Sumatra-based nonprofit, said the death of a Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus) in Jambi’s Tebo district in May was likely caused by an electric fence, the first reported case in the province.

“This is very dangerous, because the electric current can be deadly,” Wishnu told Mongabay Indonesia.

In early May, the female elephant was found dead near the boundary of an oil palm farm in Tebo’s Bukit Pemuatan village. The elephant, estimated to be between 25 and 35 years old, was discovered around two days after it had died on the privately owned farm, which lies in a forest concession managed by a subsidiary of rubber producer PT Royal Lestari Utama (RLU), a unit of the Michelin Group.

Officers from the Jambi office of Indonesia’s conservation agency, known as the BKSDA, forestry ministry law enforcers known as Gakkum, and local police seized inverters and batteries from the scene.

The dead elephant was known to conservationists as Umi, the mother of several calves from Jambi’s Bukit Tigapuluh area. Umi had been fitted with a GPS collar by the BKSDA in February this year. On May 1, Umi and her herd of around 35 elephants were spotted near the private farm. The farm owner, identified only as a 58-year-old civil servant, was found to have cut off the GPS collar after Umi died. He later returned the GPS collar to BKSDA staff.

“This has happened before in other places. Most recently it happened in Aceh,” Wishnu told Mongabay Indonesia, referring to Indonesia’s westernmost province and home to the country’s largest remaining elephant population.

In February, Mongabay Indonesia reported on the death of an elephant in Aki Neungoh village, in Aceh’s Pidie Jaya district. In a written statement, Gunawan Alza, the head of the Aceh BKSDA, attributed the animal’s death to an electric fence surrounding community plantation land.

“The elephant’s right front leg and body were entangled in electric wires,” Gunawan said, adding the animal was thought to have been around 13 years old.

In October 2017, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry reported that two elephants were killed in East Aceh district after contact with an electric fence.

Separately, local media in Aceh reported in 2022 that police in Southeast Aceh district had charged three men in connection with the death of an elephant, apparently following contact with an electric fence the men had installed around farmland.

Mongabay couldn’t confirm if the animals died as a result of being ensnared by the wiring, a common means of trapping wild animals, or if the electric current alone was the cause of death.

Electrified fences have emerged as an increasingly common tool in countries with elephant populations to prevent herds trampling through human settlements and farms, with mixed results. In Sri Lanka, the country’s Wildlife Conservation Department estimates that almost 300 elephants have been electrocuted since 2018. In Kenya, meanwhile, electric fences have proved beneficial in reducing conflicts with maize farmers, according to 2018 research by Liudmila Osipova, a Ph.D. researcher at Bangor University in Wales.

Elephants often do their best to solve problems created by humans. In Kenya, for example, some elephants learned they could use their tusks, which don’t conduct electricity, to take down electric fences. The Kenya Wildlife Service responded by authorizing the removal of tusks from elephants in Lewa Wildlife Conservancy.

In 2019 an Indian forestry ranger recorded a video of an elephant approaching an electric fence and cooly using its trunk to dismantle the wooden pole supporting the wire, before continuing on its way.

Elephants will go where they want. Solar electric fencing maintained at 5kv was designed to deter them. It’s intelligence makes them cleaver to breach that barrier. Interesting. pic.twitter.com/vbgcGTZfij

— Susanta Nanda (@susantananda3) November 4, 2019